“Do I have initiative?” Richard Montañez (played by Jesse Garcia) asks his wife, Judy (Annie Gonzalez), in the dramatic comedy “Flamin’ Hot,” directed with affectionate brio by the actor Eva Longoria.
Montañez, on whose memoir this fictionalized story is based, is eyeing an application for a job at the Frito-Lay facility in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
While he’s stumped about that word — “initiative” — soon enough he’ll embody it, as he goes from being a janitor to becoming a family man behind a Cheetos flavor that extended the snack maker’s reach, launching Montañez’s marketing career.
Montañez’s youth is recounted in a sometimes boastful, sometimes self-deprecating, always upbeat voice-over that softens the edges of his childhood, which include routine bigotry and outright racism, but also brutality and judgment from his father, Vacho (Emilio Rivera).
It wasn’t until Judy got pregnant that the pair agreed that things had to change.
Persons:
” Richard Montañez, Jesse Garcia, Annie Gonzalez, ”, Eva Longoria, Montañez, he’s, ” —, Garcia, Gonzalez, Vacho, Emilio Rivera, Judy
Organizations:
Frito, Chicano Movement
Locations:
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif